Find a way that works for you.

I was on an online call with a client recently when he told me, almost as soon as we had said hello, that he had completed a food diary for his nutritionist.

This might not sound like a remarkable announcement. The diary was something he wanted to complete and, on the face of it, fairly straightforward. Yet it had been left undone for weeks.

During two previous calls, I had asked how he was getting on with it. Each time, he told me that he had completely forgotten. He wanted to improve his nutrition and could see how the diary might help. It just wasn’t finding its way into his day.

By the second week, it seemed more useful to change how he approached it than to repeat the reminder. I suggested making it smaller. He could record just one day and see how that went. Or, instead of trying to write everything down, he could use voice notes on his phone.

The voice notes worked perfectly. He was able to record the information in a way that felt quick and natural, then use it to complete what his nutritionist needed.

The method matters

We often assume that if something is small or sensible, it should be easy to complete. When it is not, we can be quick to blame motivation, discipline or memory.

But an intention does not happen in theory. It has to fit into a real day, with limited time, attention and energy. Writing a detailed account may feel manageable to one person and strangely difficult to another. Remembering to do something later can be unreliable, especially when it has no fixed place in the day.

In this case, the goal did not need to change. The client still needed to notice and record what he was eating. What changed was the route he used to get there.

Sometimes we do not need more determination. We need a way of beginning that our brain can manage.

Reduce the friction

Friction is anything that makes the distance between intending to do something and actually beginning it feel larger. It can be practical, such as not having the right equipment nearby. It can also be mental. What we are trying to do may require too many decisions, depend on us remembering at the right moment or feel more formal than it needs to be.

When something remains undone, it can help to look for that friction before deciding that the problem is you.

Could you make it smaller? Could it be attached to something that already happens? Could you speak instead of write, prepare instead of remember, or begin with an imperfect version?

These changes are not ways of avoiding the work. They are ways of making the work possible.

Make the first version smaller

Asking someone to complete one day rather than a full week changes the emotional size of what they have been asked to do. One day provides somewhere clear to begin. It can also give useful information about what helps, what gets in the way and whether the chosen method is realistic.

Starting smaller does not reduce the value of the goal. It reduces the number of obstacles that have to be overcome at once.

We sometimes resist this because a smaller action seems too easy to count. We imagine that meaningful change should demand a meaningful effort. Yet an ambitious plan that remains untouched offers less than a modest action that actually happens.

Accountability can help us follow through

There was another part to this story. My client knew the subject would probably come up on our next call. After telling me twice that he had forgotten, he did not particularly want to say the same thing for a third week.

That small amount of accountability helped keep the intention in view. Not because he expected criticism, but because another person knew what he intended to do and would be interested in how it went.

Supportive accountability can give an intention a little more weight. A check-in creates a moment when we return to it, notice what happened and decide what needs to change. If it has not been completed, the conversation does not have to become a judgement. It can become a source of information.

What got in the way? Was the action still too large? Did the reminder come at the wrong time? Would another method work better?

The purpose of accountability is not to catch someone failing. It is to stop a useful intention from quietly disappearing.

Work with yourself

There is a wider lesson here than how to complete a food diary. Many changes fail because we keep asking ourselves to follow a method that does not suit us.

We buy a planner even though we never look at planners. We choose a workout that depends on an ideal morning routine we do not have. We set reminders, dismiss them automatically and decide we need stronger reminders.

It is easy to turn these moments into evidence that we are inconsistent. A more useful response is to become curious about how we are approaching the change.

The best method is not necessarily the most organised or impressive one. It is the one that helps the action happen. For this client, a voice note was enough to unblock the process. Once the method fit, the food diary no longer carried the same resistance.

A method that works for somebody else may not work for you in the same form. That is not a personal failing. Change often becomes possible when we stop forcing the original plan and start shaping the process around the person who has to live it.